1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to ventilators for automotive vehicles and more particularly to ventilator nozzles thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Passenger cars and other automotive vehicles, as shown in FIG. 4, have various ventilators 2 built in an instrument panel 1 for discharging fresh or conditioned air into a compartment through ventilator nozzles which are constructed as for example disclosed in the Japanese Provisional Patent Publication No. 58-214409 and also shown in FIGS. 5 and 6.
Referring to FIGS. 4 to 6, a prior art ventilator nozzle structure mainly consists of a housing 3 adapted to be installed on the instrument panel 1 and a louver 4 pivotally mounted on the housing 3. The louver 4 consists of a louver main body 6 having a plurality of horizontal parallel stationary fins 7 and a plurality of vertical parallel movable fins 8 pivotally mounted at 9a, 9b on the louver main body 6 which is in turn pivotally mounted at 12a, 12b on the housing 3. The movable fins 8 are connected at 15 by a connecting rod 14 so that horizontal movement of a control knob 5 attached to one of the movable fins 8 causes the movable fins 8 to turn leftwardly and rightwardly at the same time in the same direction. Up-and-down movement of the control knob 5 causes the louver 6 to turn upwardly and downwardly relative to the housing 3.
With the above arrangement, by turning the control knob 5 the ventilator nozzle can be turned to change the direction of airflow as desired.
A disadvantage of the above described ventilator nozzle structure is that the control knob 5 projects a considerable amount from the louver 4 when it is held at an intermediate position thereof, i.e., a position intermediate between maximumly rightward and leftward turned positions, resulting in a poor appearance of the ventilator as well as a tendency that some operations of a driver or passenger are obstructed by the control knob, since, as shown in FIG. 7, the control knob 5 is adapted to turn about the pivot 9a of the movable fin 8 and projects maximumly when held at the intermediate position and minimumly when at the maximumly positions and requires to project a certain amount that is large enough to be picked up between fingers even when it is turned maximumly to the left or right.